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Welcome to Charming, the year is now 1894. It’s time to join us and immerse yourself in scandal and drama interlaced with magic both light and dark.

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Queen Victoria was known for putting jackets and dresses on her pups, causing clothing for dogs to become so popular that fashion houses for just dog clothes started popping up all over Paris. — Fox
It would be easy to assume that Evangeline came to the Lady Morgana only to pick fights. That wasn't true at all. They also had very good biscuits.
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Back to the Beginning
#1
December 31st, 1889 — The Hog's Head

Levity was not something with which Cyrus Westerman was often credited.

This lack of the fun-loving spirit was in particularly sharp contrast against the backdrop of celebrations such as this evening, and so, while the wizard had pulled himself from his home in a half-hearted effort to ~participate, it was to The Hog's Head that he had ventured. The atmosphere of the dank pub was more somber than that of the Broomsticks, and the room far less crowded, two things that suited the wizard well indeed. He had his corner, he had his beverage to nurse, and he had his own company: the loner trifecta.

He spotted her easily enough, her scars distinguishing her from just about any other woman with the same complexion. Of course, Cyrus knew that running into Miss Scott here, in her place of employment, was a possibility, but it was a calculated risk—and not an entirely undesirable consequence of his decision to come here. Meeting her eye, the healer gave his fellow werewolf a nod of greeting.
Leila Scott/Elias Grimstone


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   Leila Scott


MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself!
#2
Leila couldn’t greet a new year with any enthusiasm, whenever it came. Years didn’t matter so much as moons in this life, and so tonight was a-week-before in her head, as comforting a tally as ever... which was to say not at all.

The Hog’s Head was emptier than usual tonight, which made a welcome change as Leila trudged about, dusting corners and collecting used glasses to be washed-up. Speaking of, the couple of people here looked especially washed up, even for their usual clientele - she was surveying them absently when she found herself eye-to-eye with Healer Belby. Westerman. Westerman.

She fought the flinch and the urge to turn away as if she hadn’t seen him, all the turmoil of their last - first - meeting flooding back to her. She hadn’t done what he’d offered - hadn’t gone to see him, asked him to teach her what he had qualified in all those years ago.

But he mustn’t believe this was enough for her; Leila didn’t think he had believed it then, not when she didn’t even believe it herself. She had come close - so close - to knocking on his door, truly she had - sometimes as she walked home she would take a detour just to pretend she might - but she hadn’t spoken to him since, had convinced herself that it would be a mistake, and was too late now, anyway.

No one would want her to heal them, even if she knew how, Leila was convinced of that. That said, she was still limping here and there from the twinge of her leg, the incident she’d had in the forest a month ago, and that was proof enough she couldn’t even take proper care of herself, even after patching herself up for the last five years.

Mr. Westerman had nodded at her though, which was already more cordial than she had imagined he would be if she bumped into him again. Turning away and taking a breath to steel herself, she tossed away her dusting rag and snatched a bottle off the shelf behind the bar.

“Can I get you another?” Leila murmured by way of greeting, tipping the bottle towards him questioningly, surveying him out of the corner of her eye as she did so. “On the house.” She added, not sure if she meant it as some kind of gesture, a peace offering - not sure if he would accept it if she did. To add to the list of things she was not sure about: had he meant what he said last time? Did he even remember it? Would he be remotely inclined to give her a second chance if she wanted it?


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   Cyrus Westerman

#3
"That's... that's kind of you," he settled on, face quizzical but tone doing his best to hide that fact. Of all the things he had expected Miss Scott to say, that had not even made the list.

Though he hadn't been surprised, Cyrus had been surprisingly disappointed when, after their last meeting some months ago, Miss Scott had not taken him up on the offer he wasn't even certain he had wanted to make. As time had gone forward, though, he had largely forgotten their brief exchange but as he saw her again, he was forced once more to wonder how happy, how fulfilled, she could possibly be with the sharp left turn her life had taken.

He looked at her appraisingly but, like Cyrus himself, Miss Scott seemed to have long since learned to keep a blank mask.
Leila Scott




MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself!
#4
She thought she caught a glimpse of shock on his face at her approach. So, what, he had been expecting her to ignore him? That was what she had decided to do since their last encounter, but he had come into her pub, after all, and there wasn’t exactly anything new she could hold against him.

“Not that kind,” Leila remarked, with a brief brittle laugh. “It’s not worth the knuts it costs.” Still, she poured out a top-up of the musty liquid and then returned to cradling the bottle in her hand, loitering awkwardly near his table. Whether he’d meant it or not, his offer to her had been a great deal kinder. The first kind thing anyone had done in a long time.

How’ve you been? was on the tip of her tongue before she changed tack at the last moment with a beseeching look in her eyes, clutching desperately at casual conversational straws before the moment passed entirely. “I’m s’posed to wish you a happy new year now.” She was not entirely sure why that had come out as it had; some wry confession, some shrugged nod to long-forgotten social niceties, or to the sadly-not-yet-forgotten owner’s instructions for talking to the patrons this evening. It seemed a ridiculous sentiment, though, in this context more than most - she didn’t know what Mr. Westerman was thinking, but she could not imagine that if he was here tonight that he could be much more optimistic than she was.



#5
"Happy might be a bit of a tall order," he answered simply, accompanied by a small shrug, "but your well-wishes are appreciated—provided they're in earnest?"
Leila Scott




MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself!
#6
Feeling a rising awkwardness, Leila made her best attempt at nodding, feeling a little sheepish that she had to assure anyone she was being earnest. The problem was, she hadn’t been earnest about anything in years. “Maybe not happy, then,” she acknowledged, in a plainer tone, “but hopefully - better?” Not as shitty as the last year? That was always a start.

She might make a better start to the next year if she actually tried to improve things for herself, but that meant... “Mr. Westerman,” she said, clearing her throat and gripping the bottle she was holding to dissuade herself from... well, bottling this. “About - what you said last time we met.” Merlin, she hoped he even remembered that conversation. Maybe he hadn’t been playing it over and over in his mind for the last few months whenever he felt especially miserable. (Mm, probably not.) But - “I don’t know if you remember your, er, offer - of teaching, but -” Her face creased into a frown from the effort of trying to phrase this in a way he would understand, and she looked at him pleadingly as she finished in a rush, “- did you mean it?”


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   Cyrus Westerman

#7
"Without reservation," he answered easily, though that much was a bit of a fib—he had had great reservation. He had been uncertain whether he wished her to accept or not, whether he was even up to the task, whether this wouldn't be an utter disaster. But Cyrus Westerman had made the offer nonetheless, and while he was no longer a man, not truly, he was still a man of his word.

That the young werewitch would bring up his offer after so long a time struck Cyrus as a sign she was poised to take him up on the offer.
Leila Scott




MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself!
#8
Without reservation, he said. Without reservation. And just like that, she could breathe again.

Because Leila hadn’t been that sure of him, not really. Healer Belby had not gotten a chance to know her well, before; she expected she would not have left the slightest imprint on his memory if things hadn’t gone disastrously south as they had. Even that they had, that they had both been flung onto this course of life at the same time, didn’t mean anything. It hadn’t been his fault. (She wished it had been someone’s fault - it would be easier - but being a werewolf now, she couldn’t even blame the werewolf who’d turned them.) But Healer Belby hadn’t owed her a thing - and Mr. Westerman didn’t either.

Leila thought she might have collapsed on the spot in sheer relief, but she stood stock-still and tried to look grateful without breaking into the grin she wanted to. “I barely know enough to look after myself, these days,” she admitted, let alone other people, thinking of the endless wounds and bruises and extra scrapes she got herself into and suddenly airing reservations of her own in spite of herself. (What if he changed his mind because of it?) “But I want to learn, still. I’ll learn whatever you want to teach.” It wasn’t like cleaning the Hog’s Head kept her that occupied, after all.


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   Cyrus Westerman

#9
He had barely even thought of her back then, never considered her potential, but he had long carried a sense of duty towards her, a sense of duty born the night that had irreversibly changed their lives. Cyrus knew there was little he could do to improve his own circumstances, but if he could improve hers in even a small way, it would be a first step down the long road to making amends for not protecting her that night as he, as her superior, ought to have done.

"I admit that I am rusty, insofar as teaching goes," he cautioned Miss Scott, "but I had a great deal of knowledge as Ephraim Belby—" the name felt strange and foreign to him "—and have gained more in the years since I left him behind. I am happy to impart as much of that knowledge as I can on you, though it will not be easy."
Leila Scott




MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself!
#10
“Easy,” Leila repeated a little breathlessly, shaking her head but her eyes suddenly alight. “Who needs easy?” She didn’t need easy; ‘easy’ was as much of a stranger to her now as the rest of her family and the remnants of a former life. She imagined the same went for him and his life as Ephraim Belby. Perhaps for his own sake, she should try and forget Healer Belby as he had been, and take this as a blank slate. A fresh challenge - but a better one than most they faced.

“To - new starts, then,” she toasted him with a tentative tilt of the bottle in her hands to illustrate it, and her smile slipping past a bitten lip. She could not explain how grateful she was to him for having remembered her at all. He could have left her behind in this life, and gotten on with his own alone. (It would have been easy enough to do.)


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   Cyrus Westerman

#11
New starts seemed rather a grim thing to toast to, at least for the pair of them. Both had endured a new start far crueler than most would suffer in three lifetimes. Still, now did not seem the best time to put a damper on things, what with Miss Scott seeming genuinely keen. Cyrus raised a glass to echo her own.

"New starts, indeed."




MJ is pretty nifty @ graphics, if I do say so myself!

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